Editor's note: The Anchorage Museum of History
and Art provided source material to Resource Library Magazine for
the following article or essay. We extend our special appreciation to Walter
A Van Horn for bringing together texts for this article. If you have questions
or comments regarding the source material, please contact the Anchorage
Museum of History and Art directly through either this phone number or web
address:

Creating the Myths
of Alaska: Art from the Permanent Collection is
an exhibit currently on view at The Anchorage Museum of History and Art.
According to the Museum's newsletter, "Creating the Myths tackles
the sizeable task of describing Alaska by exploring the different ways people
have made art in the last Frontier over the past several decades."
The exhibit will be on display through September 26, 2004.

In the fall of 1999, the Anchorage Museum of History and
Art initiated an exhibition series, now titled Points of View, as
a way of presenting its permanent collection of art of the North from new
perspectives. For the exhibitions in this series, the Museum staff invites
a guest curator to survey the Museum's art collection and select an exhibition
that will present works in the collection from a different "point of
view," bringing fresh eyes to the work and creating new and interesting
juxtapositions that offer Museum visitors new insights into the art of Alaska
and the far North. . Previous Points of View curators have included
artists Wanda Seamster, Richard Benson, David Mollett, and Ronald Senungetuk.

The Guest Curator for the 2004 Points of View is
Anchorage painter Duke Russell, who has lived in Alaska since he was 12
years old. Russell is a self-taught artist whose well-known urban scene
paintings have been included in several juried shows at the Museum, as well
as at solo shows at Decker/Morris Gallery and Subzero. Russell also teaches
drawing to children at the Museum and was voted "Anchorage's Best Artist"
by the Anchorage Press last year.

Following is the text from a gallery handout sheet written
by Mr. Russell titled Curator's Statement. Below the Statement
is selected text from the wall panels in the exhibit galleries.

Curator's Statement

My imagination went wild when I was asked to do the Points
of View show. My first thought was investigation! Discovering cavernous
repositories of old masters. Getting lost in a sea of historic treasure.
Reading ancient correspondence and translating Sanskrit. Our museum, however,
is less than fifty years old. My imagination took a little turn. There
is no cavern of old masters. There is a very tidy basement though, with
low lighting and rows of metal walls that roll out like huge vertical files.
Home for the paintings. Many famous and familiar ones. Pull out a wall
and see: Thomas Hart Benton, Red Grooms, Miro. Others seem to be sidelined
for a variety of reasons, including simply falling out of fashion. I hoped
to bring out some of the latter to participate in this talent show, to
share in a broader view of experiences. It's all interesting with the
right set of eyes.

The permanent collection of paintings from the Museum
plays a role in how we keep our internal mind's eye of Alaska; it colors
our stories of Alaska when we travel abroad. Describing the Alaskan experience
is a sizeable task-not only a geographic expanse, but one of rapid growth
and change. Writing or painting about Alaska seems to extend far beyond
the margins of page or panel. With this task of looking beyond the margins,
I was lifted by the wide spectrum of art in the collection. I have included
some of the paintings that may appear a little offbeat. For instance, a
Cubist-influenced painting doesn't have the edge it might have had sixty
years ago, but it remains interesting and worth another look, as with many
of the art trends through time. I looked for honesty and well as fiction.
I looked at the different ways the people were making art in the new frontier.

From the Archives at the Museum, I have included a number
of photographs from the rich collection of Ward Wells, along with random
articles from periodicals of younger times that give us glimpses into days
past and surprise us as we discover the level of sophistication the city
of Anchorage had in the early years. The photos contrast with the art
of the same time period. I wanted to show all the other things that were
happening.

No matter the challenge it presented artists, Alaska
has attracted its fair share. In this grouping of mostly Alaska paintings
and artifacts, there lies a broad array of images and styles through a
relatively long span of time. I looked through hundreds of paintings,
gleaning each one for clues about other stories of Alaska. Sometimes the
work appeared to be pandering and perpetuating the myths of Alaska-illustrations
perhaps for works of fiction. The sunsets, the trapper with much fringe,
or the rosy-cheeked mother and child-much of this art is focused on motifs.
Did market pressures limit the reflections of the times?

What's fact? What's fiction? Why so many paintings
of caches? Are they really that cute? Popular images populate Alaska
art, which tends to make me a little crazy. Why so many repeated motifs,
why so many things not being said or painted? So I think of the small
enterprise, the offshoot, the loose cannon and the innocent narrative that
speak out to me. These are more honest and interesting. Interesting people
came to Alaska, and some were compelled to do art. That's what I want
this show to be about.

The exhibition is organized by topic. Some topics have
a sense of time period; others are more eclectic. As you go through the
exhibition, I hope that you discover that many are involved with making
our memory of things in this life. Works of art are like little dots we
connect to make our big window into the world.

Duke Russell,

Guest Curator

Selected wall panel text from the exhibit galleries:

The permanent collection of paintings from the Museum
plays a role in what we keep in our internal mind's eye of Alaska; it colors
our stories of Alaska when we travel abroad. The task of describing the
Alaskan experience is a sizeable one, not only in a geographic context,
but also one of rapid growth and change. Writing or painting about Alaska
seems to extend far beyond the margins of page or panel. With this challenge
of looking beyond the margins, I was lifted by the wide spectrum of art
in the collection. I am including some of the paintings that may appear
a little offbeat; those that reflect honesty as well as fiction, finding
different ways people were making art in the new frontier.

From the Archives at the Museum, I am including a number
of photographs from the rich collection of Ward Wells, along with random
articles from periodicals of younger times that give us glimpses into days
past. It may surprise us to discover the level of sophistication the city
of Anchorage had in the early years. The photos contrast to the art of
the same time period; I want to show all the other interesting lifestyles
that existed.